Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Kale Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Nice light lunch!

I've been meaning to make this salad for quite some time, and since kale was on sale at the grocery store and I had left-over quinoa in the fridge, this week was the perfect occasion! With its tart and sweet lemon vinaigrette, I think it's the perfect winter/spring transition salad. Although the recipe called for avocado (which would have been spot-on), they weren't on sale so I went without, but that doesn't mean that you should!

Making salad dressing doesn't get any prettier!

Salad ingredients, assemble!

Lovely close-up!

Ingredients

1 bunch chopped kale

1/2 Cup cooked quinoa

Chopped pecans, to taste

Chopped avocado, optional

Lemon Vinaigrette:

1/4 Cup olive oil

1/4 Cup apple cider vinegar

3 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 Tablespoon maple syrup

Start by making whisking all of your vinaigrette ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.

Then, assemble your salad ingredients. Wash the kale, remove the stems, and chop into bite-sized pieces and place on a large plate. Add the chopped pecans (which I just broke apart by hand), optional avocado, and finally the cooked quinoa. Top with dressing, to taste.

Super easy, eh? Like I mentioned, I ended up using left-over quinoa from my fridge, but if you intend to make this from scratch, use about a 1/2 cup cooked quinoa (which is about a 1/4 dry).

When I made this for myself I was intended to break this up into 2 servings: for immediate consumption and the next day, so I halved the entire salad fixings, but it didn't go according to plan! The salad dressing unfortunately does not keep so I would suggest either making this a large lunch salad for one hungry person or two smaller salads for two peckish people.